And when I say “the year” I mean since last year’s comic-con in San Diego.  That’s right, in honor of SDCC 2012, which I am, again, not able to attend I thought I’d do a list of my 52 favorite covers* since last year’s comic-con, so essentially July 2011 – July 2012.** Check out previous years as well – here and here.

I’m not going bore you with lengthy descriptions about what I respond to in each image, but if you frequent this blog with any regularity, the choices will not surprise you.  My tastes skew to specific things like anyone, and I reward covers that cater to those personal tastes.  For example, as a woman, I tend to be interested in covers with female characters and at the same time you’re unlikely to see many covers with a lot of objectification and hyper sexualization.  As an artist (but only sorta, and a crappy one at that) I tend to be a bit of a snob about what I think is a good or bad cover – good often involves highly graphic images, lots of great negative space, interesting/solid composition, single figures, white space, and good integration of text into the image.

Whenever possible I’ve included the full cover, with text etc., as I feel that’s part of the whole.  I made a few exceptions if the covers were saddled with particularly horrible “event banners” or some such, or if I didn’t have access to a high enough resolution image including the text.

I’m sure I missed a bunch of great covers anyway and, as always, I never feel great about the order, but I tried my best! I hope you’ll enjoy, even if they’re not the covers you would pick, it’s a beautiful line up of cover gorgeousness.

If you’re new to the blog and haven’t seen my “100 Best Comic Covers” list, you can check it out: here, here, here, and here.  As well as my “already second guessing myself” modified list here.

Next year SDCC, next year!***

* This includes only monthly saddle stapled North American comics since that is what I have access to and did not include graphic novels, trades, etc. 

**Because comics are generally dated a month or two after they are actually released, there’s a bit of a fudging of the numbers/eligibility. It makes for a bit of grey area around the eligibility dates, but I did the best I could.

***Be advised, I say this every year.  Although there is a SLIM chance I’ll be going to NYCC this year – thanks to THIS.

52. SECRET AVENGERS #18 – DAVID AJA

51. DAREDEVIL #11 – STEFFI SCHUTZEE (AAA VARIANT – AVENGERS ART APPRECIATION)

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